This blog will discuss several different topics: an overview of sporting events I've been to and breaking sports stories, and Charleston sporting events.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

Diamondbacks attendance analysis

I feel that the subject of baseball attendance has been one filled with opinions in the past few years. There have been many areas where attendance has been low, but there are others where attendance is not the issue that people think it is.

I will do all thirty teams in the Major Leagues and analyze their attendance, plus provide some insight.

Phoenix has been a growing market in the last few decades. The Phoenix area had just over a million people in 1970, having a long lasting AAA partnership with the Giants along with the spring training presence that the area has always had. The Giants moved spring training in 1964 to Phoenix.

The Cubs and Padres were the first teams to have an Arizona training presence. The Cubs were in Mesa, the Padres in Yuma. The Seattle Pilots spring training home was Tempe in 1969, and this continued with the Brewers. Other teams moved later.

In 1995, Phoenix was named as an expansion team along with the Tampa Bay area into major league baseball. Phoenix has been the more successful of the two major league expansion teams. They've won a World Series, the epic 7-game series against the Yankees in 2001. They have three other playoff appearances in history, including a NLCS trip.

Phoenix now has a metro population of over 4.3 million. It has four major sports teams. The Diamondbacks are clearly the #2 team in the Phoenix area, behind the Arizona Cardinals, who with their new stadium and their 2008 Super Bowl run became the top team in town. The rest of the state of Arizona also is Diamondbacks country.

They have radio affiliates all over the state of Arizona, in almost every large town, plus are on one of the sports stations in Albuquerque. They have a regional following.

Attendance dropped from 3.6 million in the first season in 1998, down to 2.7 million in 2001, but it went back up to 3.1 million after they won the World Series, in 2002, then down to 2.8 in 2003.

The Diamondbacks are a lower rung attendance team in the Major Leagues currently, finishing no higher than 11th in attendance rankings in the National League since 2008. In 2004, they drew 2.5 million with a 51 win team and a terrible lineup. Their best month of that season was 10-17.

The Diamondbacks do draw well on weekends, and against popular opponents. There are certain teams though that do not draw well in Phoenix. The Rockies were a bad draw in the 2004-2006 time frame, because they had not made the playoffs in over a decade. The Marlins are a bad draw, especially recently, as you would expect with little fan base from a Miami team in the state of Arizona.

The Cubs are not as big of a fan draw as you would think with all of the transplants. Only once in the last ten years has a game against the Cubs been one of the three largest draws of the year, and that was on Opening Day.

The Dodgers and the Giants though have been the biggest draws year after year in Phoenix. The Giants have their spring training in Scottsdale still, plus a lot of local fans and transplants, helping to draw the largest crowd at Chase Field the last two seasons. The Dodgers, as you expect, also have a large fan group in the area, and especially in the 2005-07 time frame, they drew very well.

They had two of the three largest crowds in 2005, and this has continued most years. The Yankees and the Red Sox, as is the case in most of MLB, are huge draws. The Yankees came in 2004 and 2010, and the Red Sox in 2007. You had 3 sellouts for the Yankees in '04 on weeknights, while the Red Sox had two of the largest crowds in '07, and the Yankees drew very well in 2010.

Arizona has a fervent MLB fan base, and with a few good years, they could become one of the best in the league. Kirk Gibson has helped them, and they have some exciting young players who will be part of the nucleus for years to come. Next up, the Atlanta Braves.